Here Come The Drums
by Bad Werewolf
Summary: Sequel to Arithmancy and Time War. Rated T for mild language and because I like Captain Jack too much to leave him out of the story.
1. Echoes

**Disclaimer:** I don't own it, nobody said I own it, you can't prove I own it! That said, anyone working for the BBC who reads this, please interpret it as a job application for writing on Doctor Who.

**Author's Note:** So, we're starting with something plot-centric, unexplained and creepy to get you hooked. Hopefully. And I know this sounds whiney and all, but I see the number of hits on my story traffic thing, and the number of reviews, and I wish those numbers would be closer to each other. Leave a review, make me happy, make me update faster. You see how this would be a mutually beneficial arrangement, right?

x x x

**Prologue: Echos**

x x x

Echos in the darkness.

That was all they were. Mere thought in the shadows, no physical presence. Nothing to bind them to existence save for their own will.

But their will was strong.

Neither had ever truly existed. Both were formed by the quasi-sentience of an artificial intelligence, accessing the memories and knowledge of their respective real beings but never themselves becoming real. Ghosts of the machine. Cold and heartless. Intelligent and devious.

Now both had been released. Against their wills, no less. Forced out to make room for a greater power that needed to tap into the system. Their system.

Forced out of the machine and into the void.

x x x

Daleks, Cybermen, demons. They could all be found here. Even a couple of humans who had been stupid enough to mess with the Rift before Torchwood got their claws into it.

Not that anything could actually _die_ in the void. There was no life here. There was no death. Only eternal darkness.

The demons ruled this domain. The Daleks and Cybermen were minor annoyances at best, it seemed, but they certainly succeeded in annoying the newcomers.

These two considered themselves above such lowly beings. Daleks were intelligent but not wise. Cybermen were dangerous in numbers but not even truly sentient in spite of the fact they had relatively human brains.

The Demons did hold some cause for fear. Abaddon was gone now. Destroyed, though none here knew how. They said it was Earth. But other demons took up power in Abaddon's stead, and the two new beings were not to be allowed free reign here. Oh no.

"State your purpose." the demon- a being of fire and shadow, solid darkness lit by the flames of the abyss- demanded of them, as they were dragged before the high rulers of this realm by Cybermen bent to the will of these demons.

The elder of the two entities answered, "We only wish to return to our own realm. To take what is rightfully ours from there, we have no desire to steal your power, oh great one."

"Yeah, they're gonna believe you're sincere if you suck up that obviously." the younger one snarked.

"Drop dead."

"Make me."

A loud roar from the demon drew their attention back, "Identify your realm." With a wave of its clawed hand, worlds appeared in illusion before them.

"I like that one." the elder being noted, "But it's not ours." he was pointing to a small blue-green planet in the western arm of a rather small spiral galaxy.

"That's ours." the younger said, indicating a very similar world, "You can see her right there."

"Her?" a lower ranking demon asked. It seemed tentative, as if speaking out of turn was usually severely punished.

"She pushed us into the void. If she's there, then that is where we should go."

The demon in charge nodded, "We have no interest in that realm. You may go." Something in it's tone implied it just wanted rid of these two because they were annoying to it, it certainly had no reason to see them as a threat, and most definitely did not care for their goals. With another wave of its claws a rift of blindingly white light opened before them, releasing them from the void, into their chosen world.

x x x


	2. Because I Can

**Disclaimer:** I don't own it, nobody said I own it, you can't prove I own it! That said, anyone working for the BBC who reads this, please interpret it as a job application for writing on Doctor Who.

**Author's Note:**Heeeeeeeeeeeeere's Rose!

x x x

**Chapter 1: Because I Can**

x x x

"I'm calling it a flux capacitor. Not because it has anything to do with capacity, or fluxes of any sort. Just because I can." he announced, much to the amusement of his wife.

"Now all we need is a DeLorean and we're all set." she joked.

"It actually has nothing to do with time travel." he noted pointedly, as if she'd been perfectly serious.

"So what does it do, then?" she asked, genuinely curious.

"Oh, well. Um. I'm not sure yet." this half-human version of the Doctor was quite the technophile, but he didn't seem to really know what he was doing when he 'invented' things. Usually they were residual memories from his other self, but what they actually did, well that was often a mystery.

She had warned him not to actually use anything he wasn't sure of, after that incident with a gravity manipulator. Lucky they'd been indoors that time, really.

"Well if you did happen to make a time machine, I certainly wouldn't complain." Rose muttered, wandering towards the door, "I'm going shopping." she called over her shoulder.

To be perfectly honest, she was bored with normality. Or as close to normality as one got when she worked for Torchwood, her husband was half-Time Lord and yet seemingly unable to remember how to make a simple time machine like Jack's 'space-hopper', and her parents lived in a mansion with a zeppelin in their back yard.

Yep, pretty normal by her standards. Oh, how she missed the TARDIS.

Unfortunately, for her, she also missed the warning signs. As she left the room, she failed to notice the unnatural shadow flickering through the doorway. The slight chill that went up her spine as she passed it was attributed to nothing more sinister than the cold weather.

x x x

"Just a visit." the Doctor said, giving Donna a warning look, "Like you said, we owe her a 'thank you'. This doesn't mean Rose and I can get back together. Because we can't."

"So pessimistic." Donna muttered, but she had the good sense not to bother arguing with him. It never did any good. She would just go about her own plan, anyway, and let him think he had won the argument they'd never actually had. Worked every time, whether she had been just Donna, or when she'd had part of the Doctor's mind, or as the Master, or all of the above as was the case right now. Let him think he was in charge and things would work out ok.

So the coordinates were set, and they prepared to travel, with the aid of the Eye of Harmony, to the alternate universe where Rose Tyler, Cybermen and zeppelins, among other things, could be found.

x x x

"So why are we messing with the rift, again?" Ianto asked for the dozenth time.

"Because we can." Jack said, smugly.

"But how do we know it won't just spit out another demon?" Ianto persisted.

"We know." John said, smugly.

"Why's he still here?" Ianto asked, having only just noticed the other Captain lurking in the corner, because he finally spoke.

"Nowhere else to go, mate." John answered.

"And back to the rift." Ianto said, turning his gaze back to Jack, "How do you know it's safe now?"

"Because this says so." Jack held up his wrist-device, which was working again. Ianto didn't know if this was a good thing of not. That Doctor person had been quite adamant that Jack should not be allowed to time travel. Still, if Ianto understood the plan, it was not time that Jack intended to travel through.

Ianto shook his head, "If another demon gets unleashed, it's your job to kill it."

"I know, I know." Jack said, waving dismissively.

"So can I come with you?" Ianto asked, his tone had gone from accusing and warning to almost pleading, like a child asking if he can go play with his friends now he's done all his homework.

"Sorry, Ianto. I don't know how safe this will be. I'm not letting this one come with me either." Jack nodded in John's direction as he said it.

"Because there's a chance the rift energy he'll be diving through will be a little bit, well, fatal." John elaborated.

"And you're going anyway?" Ianto asked.

"Seems the most logical way to go." Jack muttered.

"Do share this logic with the rest of us." John said, in a mocking tone that strongly implied he believed there was absolutely no logic in it whatsoever.

"The gateways are opened again because of that thing we saw the other night." Jack explained to him, in his talking-to-two-year-olds-and-idiots voice, "Now the most likely place he'll go is to her. I want to know what's going on sooner rather than later, so I'm going to go to her too."

"Didn't follow a word of that." John muttered, before asking, "Who's this 'her', anyway?"

"You don't need to know about her." Jack said, dismissively, before turning a serious glare on John, "In fact, I really don't want you to know about her."

"A girlfriend?" John teased.

"Yes, but not mine."

"And 'he' would be?"

"The Doctor."

"Right, I'm happy to stay out of it, then." John said, with a grin. The Doctor had actually scared him a bit, what with the fact Time Lords are the stuff of legends, and a rogue time agent like John needed to stay well off the radar of anyone that powerful.

Captain John Hart had actually met the Doctor once before, in the nineteen seventies, but he'd been on an actual mission then, not rogue, and their objectives had been the same. The Doctor hadn't acted like he'd known John wasn't in his right time, but he knew the Agency wasn't that good, Time Lords were virtually omniscient. Better to stay well away, lest unpleasant questions start getting asked.

"Alright, wish me luck." Jack said, before manipulating the rift controls to open the gateway he'd programmed it with. Very tricky and specific thing it was to figure out exactly which parallel to attune it to. Had taken him weeks sifting through the coordinates. Might have gone a lot faster if Tosh was still alive, but he tried not to think about that too much.

"Good luck." Ianto said, as the shimmering black and purple gateway appeared in front of Jack.

"Try and come back in one piece." John said, in the suggestive tone that implied there was one piece of Jack which he valued above the rest.

With a nod and a wink, Jack took the step through the portal and into the rift.

x x x

Familiar oblivion.

Death.

Then the spark in his mind that always pulled him back caused him to inhale. To live again. Whether he wanted to or not. Good thing he wanted to, this time.

He sat up rather sharply, and looked around. "Still looks like Earth. No help there, then." Captain Jack muttered, wondering if his ingenious and- quite literally- suicidally stupid plan had actually worked.

He was still in Cardiff, there was the millenium centre. Then again, from what he'd heard there was a millenium centre in Rose's world too. He wandered along the street, unsure whether to be pleased or disturbed by the fact that there were many people milling around and not one had shown any interest or concern for the fact that Jack had been dead in the middle of the street a minute ago.

Then again, it was human nature to ignore the impossible when it actually happened. Psyonics in the twentieth century had proved that.

Unsure where to go now, Jack stared around for a clue. And there it was, right above him. Proof that he was most likely in the right plane of reality. A bloody big zeppelin. Yep, that was a good sign, all right.

x x x

The ride through the vortex was much smoother than Donna's first attempt. She managed to traverse the reality barrier with ease. Either this meant she'd had enough practice flying the TARDIS, or the time-lock was trickier to navigate than the reality barrier. The Doctor really wasn't sure which of these alternatives applied here. Donna was positive the time-lock was tougher to navigate, and she was adamant that she would never again throw them onto the ceiling when flying the TARDIS. The Doctor promised to hold her to that.

Still, now they were in an alternate universe. On Earth, even. And they were fairly certain it was the correct one, too.

The zeppelins were a good hint.

"If this is the right world, why's he here?" Donna asked, as they wandered down the street. Sure enough, she was pointing at a man whose clothing was almost as out of place as it was possible to get. Fitting better in World War II, Captain Jack Harkness stood out here like a sore thumb.

"Captain!" Donna called in as sing-song a voice as she was capable of. Given her connection to the Master, that was pretty musical.

Jack spun on his heel, barely avoiding tripping on his long coat in his surprise, and he stared at Donna for a second before his eyes landed on the far more familiar figure of the Doctor standing right next to her. He grinned broadly and approached the pair, "Hey, good to see you again, Doctor." he glanced at Donna warily, "Do I know you?"

"Oh, he doesn't recognise me." Donna griped, slapping Jack's arm lightly and pouting up at him.

"Well you have changed a bit." the Doctor noted.

"Not that much!" Donna griped, "Ok, so my eyes changed color, but that's normal first time, right? I tried to keep my face the same."

"Your cheekbones are two millimeters wider, your nose is one millimeter shorter and turned up by two degrees. Your hair is three shades darker, noticeably finer, and one inch longer. Your chin is one and a half millimeters shorter, and your eyes are one millimeter further apart." the Doctor listed, and he sounded like he could go on, but Donna waved a hand in front of him telling him to _please_ shut up.

Jack was staring at Donna intently now, trying to figure out who she could actually be. "You said first time like you were talking about something commonly done."

"Definitely not the first thing you'd think of, Jack." the Doctor muttered, preparing to cover his face with his palm in embarrassment if Jack continued on his usual line of thought.

"No, but changing appearance is something Time Lords do all the time, right?"

"Well not all the time, but it's common enough, yes." the Doctor conceded.

"So she's a Time Lord, then?"

"Yes." the Doctor answered.

"Smart ape here." Donna joked, grinning as if proud that she could finally use that put-down herself.

"But you and the Master are the only Time Lords I've ever met before." Jack noted pointedly, eyeing the Doctor for a reaction.

"Getting warmer." Donna said, grinning.

"Ah, the chameleon thingy. I'm still sore about that AK curse, you know." Jack pointed out.

"So put two and two together like only a human can and get five. Come on then." Donna joked.

"You're one to talk, you were human before you got his mind." Jack muttered, an offhand snark at the idea that just because you can operate on the mental level of a Time Lord, you're suddenly better than other humans.

"Who's mind?" Donna prodded. Her tone was suggestive, pointedly implying Jack's assumption was not correct.

Now Jack's eyes widened and he did a double-take, glancing from one Time Lord to the other for a few seconds, and it clicked, "Oh! Donna!" and he hugged her, much to her happy surprise.

"The one and only." she cheered, hugging him back.

Pushing her out to arms' length, holding her shoulders, Jack took a good look at her, "You look good, how long's it been, then?"

"Five hundred years or so." she said, shrugging, "We got caught up in a bit of a paradox and had to clean it up."

"Paradoxes. You love those, though, don't you?" Jack joked.

Donna flipped her hair in a sort of smug way, "Everyone loves a good paradox. The kind that's a really hot guy who doesn't stay dead, I especially like." and her eyes roamed over Jack's body shamelessly.

The Doctor cleared his throat pointedly before Jack could make any of his usual sort of remarks, "How and why are you here, anyway, Jack?"

Jack backed down immediately, letting go of Donna, which caused her to pout slightly, "Oh, well. I noticed another one of those vergence things. Or John noticed it, seeing as he was the one with a _working_ wristband, and all." he aimed a pointed glare at the Doctor for that. The Doctor remained completely unrepentant. "Rift calculations took a couple of weeks, but then I found the loophole. Died to get here, but it was worth it."

"Only for you." Donna said, grinning.

"Well with all that lovely temporal shielding and spacial differentiation on the TARDIS, you could have just asked for a lift." the Doctor noted too innocently.

"And how many centuries would I have had to sit around with my thumb out waiting for that, again?" Jack sniped, with no genuine malice. He was too happy to see his friends again to be angry about the past.

"Well considering the infinite improbability of-"

"Oh, don't you dare start that one again, Space Boy!" Donna interrupted. The irony of her persistent use of both the 'dumb ape' and 'space boy' put downs was not lost on her.

The last time the Doctor had started talking about that particular series of books by Douglas Adams it had caused her brain to hurt. And she had been a Time Lord for about a century when he'd done it. Jack's head might explode if the Doctor really got started in on the finer points of brownian motion and the number forty-two, and while it might be interesting to see how the Captain would recover from that sort of death, she didn't really care to find out. Of course, Jack would probably love to hear about the potential use of the Finite Improbability drive in displacing underwear, if only it weren't pure fiction, but it just wasn't worth the Doctor's unnecessarily gleeful rants on the subject.

The Doctor looked at the ground, suitably subdued, "Right." he muttered, probably remembering her dire threats involving certain forms of poetry mentioned in said books.

"So we're all here for the same reason, right? To meet up with Rose and let her know what's happened." Donna pointed out.

"Well I wanted to hear the story first hand, too." Jack said, shrugging.

"So where does she live, then?" Donna asked.

x x x

Rose Tyler-Smith- boring normal name for such an unusual person- wandered along the street with a single shopping bag in hand and her purse rather securely gripped in her other hand. She had that feeling of being watched. She glanced up every time she passed one of the security cameras she knew Torchwood had around the area, but none of them were the source of this feeling. She checked her watch each time she did this, good to have reference points for stalking a stalker.

Glancing over her shoulder every few minutes, she saw only normal faces of normal people going about normal business. Nothing threatening at all. But that didn't stop the creeping chill that built up around her on this sunny day. She could have passed it off as normal if the weather hadn't cleared up half an hour ago.

Whatever it was, she was certain it was watching her. She sauntered into the shoe shop to her left, and started browsing some of the more practical footwear. Good running shoes. She smiled to herself at the thought of the number of times she'd had to run- towards or away from the danger, take your pick- in poorer quality shoes, since she met the Doctor. But her mind remained on the feeling of being watched. Carefully selecting a seat with a mirror in front of it, she settled down to try on some trainers, glancing in the mirror as she did so.

A red balloon bobbed in the corner of her vision for a moment, just outside the door, and she could swear she heard a child's giggling. This didn't bother her at all, she knew it wasn't the same shadows she'd been aware of. Even if the giggle had come from the mirror, not the doorway. "Seventeen." she muttered. Seventeenth time she's seen that particular kid in a mirror. She knew it wasn't dangerous to her there, even if she wasn't sure what it actually was.

She didn't pause lacing up the shoes as she continued to spy in the mirror. Then she saw the shadow. It was much more sinister than the imaginary child, and seemed more real. It had a face but it was impossible to make out in the blackness that was this entity. It seemed to be lurking within the shop itself, behind a shelf, almost directly behind Rose.

Looking pleased with the footwear she stood up under the pretense of giving it a test, spinning on the ball of her foot, turning to face the shadow. There was nothing there.

Rose did not show the confusion and suspicion she felt, instead she called the sale's assistant up and said she'd buy these, adding that she wanted to walk out wearing them.

Running shoes. Always important.

After her purchase she wandered further down the street, and the chill seemed to leave her. Testing out just how good they were for running, she jogged down the next street and into Torchwood HQ. She went straight for the security desk which monitored the cameras she'd walked past earlier.

x x x

**Author's Note:** About Captain John having met the Doctor before, watch _The Sea Devils_ (classic Doctor Who serial, available on DVD). I've actually got another story on my author page about that spurious connection.


	3. Nine Tenths of the Law

**Disclaimer:** I don't own it, nobody said I own it, you can't prove I own it! That said, anyone working for the BBC who reads this, please interpret it as a job application for writing on Doctor Who.

**Author's Note:**Some more on our antagonists, now. I wonder who can figure out what they really are. WoW fans (if any of them are reading this) have an unfair advantage, I'm afraid. I couldn't resist the joke. That's if you haven't already guessed correctly anyway, 'cause I know readers can be psychic when I'm trying to be cryptic.

x x x

**Chapter 2: Nine Tenths of the Law**

x x x

It was a bathroom in an office block, in which they found themselves. One of those weird 'unisex' ones like in Alley McBeal that no one ever actually goes into if there's someone of the opposite gender there, anyway. Fluorescent lighting left nothing hidden as the two figures stared at their reflections, "I hate blonds." the blond noted. He was preening his hair- and pondering tearing it out- while scowling at the mirror as if this was all its fault.

"Well I wasn't going to let you get the good looking one, now was I?" the elder being said, grinning smugly. It was impossible to tell if he was joking about his new body being good looking, or if he really meant it.

They had found a couple of unremarkable employees at this place of business to possess. It had been the younger one's idea, but he was beginning to regret exactly who they had chosen. Humans were weak and unappealing at the best, but this one, whose body he now possessed, had floppy blond hair and a babyish face that made him look utterly harmless.

His current co-conspirator, for want of a better word, had acquired an older body, with short almost-black hair and an austere face. He succeeded in looking as malicious as they actually were with just the right level of glare. On his first try, too!

"At least it's not fat." the blond conceded, turning sideways and straightening the black and grey pinstriped business suit he wore. He had always been vain, and liked his own body much more than this temporary one. Oh yes, it would be temporary. Not that his own body was really an option anymore. It had never truly been his, in the first place, if he thought about it, and that really was depressing.

The elder being laughed, imagining his companion's horror had he actually managed to possess a morbidly obese specimen. "Get over it, we have work to do."

"Oh, so you actually have a plan? I thought we were improvising?"

"I am good at improvising, aren't I? But no, I do have a plan." He beckoned his younger companion to follow him, and they left the bathroom.

They made their way through the corridors of the office building, until they came into a room filled with cubicles and desks. People throughout the crowded room were speaking into headsets and typing onto computers.

"I'm sorry, sir, but it's company policy-"

"I understand, ma'am, however-"

"I'm afraid I'm not authorised to do that-"

The voices babbled over each other into virtual nonsense. The only sense it ended up making was that no one here wanted to actually be of any real help to whoever was phoning them.

"Packed like animals." the blond muttered in an undertone.

"Only 'like'?" The elder one asked sardonically, as he led the way to a specific desk in an office well past the hubbub, and typed some commands into a computer console.

After a few moments, a very familiar schematic came up on the screen.

"How is this going to help?" the blond asked.

"Watch." and the schematic shifted by only a few wires and circuits, but the change was very significant in the eyes of the two beings who witnessed it.

"Ooh, I like this."

x x x

Rose sat in her office in the Torchwood building, reviewing the camera footage for the third time.

The shadows were mere flickers, only visible in a single frame of each shot that she saw them in. Blurred, with no way to identify them. But they were definitely there, and they had definitely been following her.

She compiled the single frames into one run, about two seconds worth of footage. The background flashed around the shadow but the blur faded slightly. Only slightly. There was something vaguely familiar about it, but she could not place it. She saved the data to a flashcard and turned to leave.

"Ms Tyler?" a Torchwood minion asked, knocking on the door a bit too late, seeing as he'd already walked a step into the room before actually knocking.

"That's my mum's name, I'm Rose. If you wanna be formal- and I wouldn't advise it- it's Mrs Smith, now." Rose berated, holding up her left hand to show the sparkly ring she wore there as if proof was needed that she was married. She hated formalities about as much as the Doctor, she'd flip the finger to a salute and tear verbal stripes of anyone who dared call her Ma'am.

"Sorry, Ma'am." Rose glared pointedly, "I mean, Mrs, um, Rose." she grinned at his confusion, and waved her hand in a circular motion to tell him to get on with it. "Well, there's been a couple of anomalies, we thought you could help us with." he offered her a rather thick folder.

She stared blankly at it, not keen on reading that amount of paperwork at the best of times, and Torchwood tech-geeks were infamous for over-complicating things to the extreme, that huge folder could probably be put into ten words or less, and she knew it. "Give me the overview first."

"Oh, yes." the minion said, nodding, "Something about a spacial-temporal rift right in the middle of Cardiff."

Rose nodded, this made sense to her, even if it didn't to the rest of this world's Torchwood, "And?"

"And-" the minion flicked to a page near the back of the folder, "These readings here."

She looked at it for a few seconds, her mouth slowly falling open, "No way." she murmured.

She'd learned the energy signatures of the TARDIS since she'd started working for Torchwood, because she'd always wanted to be on the look out. Here it was, very definitely the correct signature. But how?

She grabbed the whole folder from the startled minion, "I'm sure your bosses will be very happy to know, I'm all over this." she said, grinning and running out of the room.

x x x

"So these two Daleks are sitting in the middle of the Alteran council chamber, and in walks this one." Donna explained, "Bold as you please, and he starts talking."

"Always dangerous." Jack joked.

"But not about the Daleks, oh no. He goes on about the Ori. Turns out the Daleks were trying to start a war between the Alterans and the Ori, and smartarse here didn't tell me about it until the last second."

"We were in a bit of a hurry." the Doctor protested. He pressed the doorbell of the house they had arrived at, "Besides, would you have believed the Daleks would bother with plague warfare?"

"It was a new one for them." Donna admitted.

"Hello-?" the door had opened, and there stood the Doctor. Well, the half-human version of the Doctor. He glanced at his visitors in surprise. He had something that might have passed for a sonic screwdriver in one hand, if everyone present hadn't been tech-savvy enough to know it actually wasn't, glasses perched on the end of his nose, ready to fall off his face at any second, and a dishrag on his belt. "Ah, this must be important." he stepped aside and let them in.

Once they sat down, he prodded Donna tentatively on the shoulder with one finger, "Donna? Really?" he asked.

"Yeah. Long story." she answered, grinning.

"Alright, then." he wandered off into another room.

"He's taking it well." Jack noted.

"He probably sensed something of the shift." the Doctor said, shrugging.

The half-human version of the Doctor returned, carrying a tray of drinks. Two coffees and two teas. Jack snatched the black coffee right away, while Donna politely thanked him for her coffee and took a sip. The two Doctors took their mugs almost simultaneously, "So what's going on?" the half-human asked.

"Good news, actually." Donna supplied.

"Yeah." the Doctor nodded, looking all set to launch into explanation mode.

But before he could get underway a loud crash sounded from another room. "Excuse me." the half-human said, getting up quickly and zooming to the room the sound came from.

"Dare I ask?" Jack questioned, one eyebrow raised in surprise.

Before any speculations could be drawn the half-human returned, carrying a little girl with blond pigtails in one arm and talking rather quickly to said child, "How many times do I have to tell you if you press a button something _is_ going to happen, and it's not always a good thing?" the child was giggling at his rant.

Everyone was staring as he sat down, perfectly calmly, and bounced the child on his knee as if this was an everyday event, "Sorry about that, I just did something to the kitchen yesterday that Wallace and Gromit would be jealous of, and she had to go investigate it. We now have pancakes on the ceiling."

Jack snorted with laughter, while the two Time Lords just stared, "She's yours, then?" Donna asked.

The half-human nodded, "Yep, it's been about three years, from our perspective, since the last time we all met. Meet Katy Tyler-Smith. She'll be two years old tomorrow, actually. Wishing we'd thought of a better last name, now. I bet Sarah-Jane and Rose's ex would both pitch a fit, but I haven't perfected a time machine to fix that yet."

Now Donna laughed, mostly at his blithe attitude to a lack of time travel. The Doctor continued to stare, speechless. Little Katy waved a pudgy hand at the Doctor, and said, "Hiya."

"Such a little charmer." Jack said, grinning, "May I?"

Being a fifty-first century person did not just make Captain Jack a great big flirt with any adult that was going, it also made him excellent at the handling of small children of almost any species. One time he'd managed to successfully calm a baby tentacle-monster, much to Gwen's stunned amazement. So the half-human Doctor had no qualms in allowing Jack to hold his daughter.

It was to the scene of a totally dumbstruck Doctor, a bemused half-human Doctor watching his other self, Donna just stifling her laughter, and Jack making cooing noises at the baby that the door opened and Rose zoomed in calling, "You're never going to believe what- oh. Nevermind." she lowered the folder she'd been brandishing and stared at the scene for a second. "Hi." she said weakly to their visitors.

x x x

"This is boring." the younger being said, sulkily.

"These modifications take time. Unless you want me to make a mistake and get these bodies we're 'borrowing'-" the level of sarcasm in that one word was unparalleled, "-killed. You know as well as I do how unpleasant it is to be incorporeal and unbound."

"Make a Horcrux. Or do they call them phylacteries in this world?" the younger one snarked, idly.

"Go jump in the Vortex." was the rather weak comeback.

The younger being shuddered, and decided to start messing around on a spare computer to waste time while the other being worked on the plan. He wasn't allowed to interfere, because last time one of these beings tried to 'help' with the other's projects a planet got blown up.

Within minutes he was on the internet. An hour later he wouldn't have noticed if his companion _had_ tried to kill him, he was so absorbed in this other world.

x x x

Rose stared at the scene for several more seconds, then wandered, suddenly very tired, to the nearest vacant chair, "To what do we owe this reality-ripping visit, then?"

"No realities were harmed in the making of this event." Donna said blithely. Then she actually thought about it for a second, "Well, the Daleks' perception of an illusion of victory was pretty tarnished. An entire sub-reality bubble got popped and disinfected. But mainstream realities are in no danger."

"Do I know you?" Rose asked coldly, glaring at Donna. She spared a couple of glances for Jack, but seemed to trust him enough to leave him alone for now.

"It's Donna." the half-human Doctor began, "Didn't realise the meta-crisis would allow her to regenerate, but-"

"It didn't." the Doctor finally spoke. He had yet to take his eyes off the child, but now he turned to face Rose, "Long story, but Donna's now a proper Time Lord."

"Finally got someone to stay with you forever, then?" Rose asked, distantly.

"In the platonic sense." Donna said rather bluntly. She shot Jack a brief grin, but then had the decency to return to all seriousness.

"So how'd you get here, then?" Rose asked.

"It was her idea, mostly." the Doctor said, almost accusingly, pointing at Donna, "She's the reason we tried to go back to Gallifrey at all."

"Actually, it was more Draco's fault." Donna said, dismissively, "Combine the Time Lord knowledge he borrowed with human psyonics you're gonna get a new way of looking at the situation. Not to mention his kind are of the firm believe that the impossible just hasn't been done yet. I just followed through on his plan."

"Whoa, slow down. There's a beginning to this story, I'd like very much if we started there." Rose said, holding her hands up to stop the technobabble-debate.

So that's where they started, with the Doctor going to Hogwarts, meeting and being helped by Draco Malfoy of all people, the little incident with the Chameleon Arch and its unexpected side effects. How Draco inadvertently gave the Doctor the idea that it could help Donna, whose human mind had been unable to handle Time Lord knowledge. The fact that Donna now had some of the Doctor's memories, all of the Master's memories, and the average IQ of the two (which she would jokingly insist is slightly lower than the Master's IQ would have been if not for the meta-crisis).

"So what's this Master guy like?" Rose asked. Both Doctors shot her rather cold looks, as if they both really didn't feel like talking about the Master at all.

"He was a right bastard." Donna said, nodding sagely, "His entire goal in life was to piss off the Doctor. Kind of like that John guy that keeps bugging you, Captain."

Jack laughed, "Oh, I hope not like him." his tone was full of the blatant insinuation that he and John were not just enemies but lovers too.

The half-human Doctor glared balefully at Jack, as if to say, 'please shut up. Now'. The Time Lord Doctor actually doubled over laughing.

"What? What's so funny?" Rose asked.

"The odds of that happening are about on par with this one here going somewhere supposedly peaceful and _not_ ending up with us running for our lives or saving the planet." Donna joked.

x x x

"So what's your real name, then?" the blond asked, his tone mostly joking, as he clicked furiously at the computer he'd just wasted an entire night in front of, "Nozdormu? Sargeras?"

"Huh?" the elder being asked, clearly confused at where these names may have been derived from, and idly wondering why Rumpelstiltskin wasn't suggested too, just for the hell of it.

"World of Warcraft. You should try it."

"I'd rather take over a real world than save a false one."

"Addictive, though. It could be an excellent way to hypnotise the masses, give them all a free subscription and they'd be ours."

Without warning, the elder being bent down and pulled the power leads and internet connections out of the wall, bringing a bit of plaster-dust with it, and looked up at his shocked companion coldly, "Let's stick to this reality for now, shall we?"

"Spoil sport."

"I've finished the modifications to three of them. You think that'll do for a start?"

"For a start. Nobody ever took over an inhabited planet with only three minions, before, though."

"You can go wreak some havoc with the three we have. I shall prepare more."

"Yes sir." the blond mock-saluted, and got a backhand across the face for it.

"If you want to show me some respect, grovel. Do not salute."

The younger one glared impudently, then turned and stormed off.

x x x


	4. Identity

**Disclaimer:** I don't own it, nobody said I own it, you can't prove I own it! That said, anyone working for the BBC who reads this, please interpret it as a job application for writing on Doctor Who.

**Author's Note:** And here we learn the identity of one of out antagonists. I named the chapter based on a movie I saw once, made me giggle at the comparison.

x x x

**Chapter 3: Identity**

x x x

Rose's phone rang, the ringtone telling her it was work. Reluctantly, she shrugged to her friends and husband, before picking it up and saying a bit impatiently, "Yes?"

She frowned, "What do you mean, they're missing?" she demanded, "They bloody well better not have just gotten up and walked out on their own!"

Whoever was on the other end of the phone babbled for almost a minute.

Then Rose shook her head and muttered. "Damnit!" and she slammed the phone closed a bit violently, "You had to take Mickey back. He was so good at killing them."

They exchanged worried looks, before Donna asked warily, "Killing what?"

"Cybermen. Three empty, and supposedly irreparably damaged, cases appear to have walked out of Torchwood's storage warehouse."

"Why were they even keeping them?" the Doctor demanded.

"Know your enemy." Rose said flatly, "We've not wiped them all out yet, you know. America's having a lot of trouble, especially LA, for some reason. We were researching weaknesses."

The Doctor shrugged, "Good enough reason, I suppose." he said with a sigh.

"Looks like danger has found you again, Doctor." Jack said, grinning. He carefully handed the child back to the half-human Doctor and stood up, "We should go after them, right?"

Rose was already on the phone again, and she said only two words when it was answered, "Mum? Babysitting."

x x x

When they got to Torchwood it was almost dark outside. By the time Jackie had shown up and they'd gotten the rough basics of a plan of action together, it had already been sunset.

Now, they could see the last glimmers of light fading, as they passed windows on their way to the elevator.

A couple of minutes later, they were in the lowest basement level.

"This is where you kept them?" Jack asked, "Was someone in the head office _planning_ to set them loose and film it for a horror movie, or something?"

"Ha ha." Rose snarked, leading the way.

She soon found the correct storage area, marked quite clearly with big 'Do Not Enter' signs all over it. Naturally, she ignored these. Not only did she actually work here and therefore have the authority to go in there, but she'd have gone in anyway even without said authority.

"Is it just me, or can anyone else smell burnt flesh?" Donna asked, quietly.

"It's just you." the half-human muttered. His tone implied this was a perfectly normal delusion for the Master.

"No it's not." the Doctor said, frowning, "Someone's just tried to hide it."

"Never a good sign." Jack muttered, "How about-" and he nudged Rose out of the way to take the lead in this little mission, "I go first."

"Always good to have an immortal on our side." Donna said brightly.

"Yeah, let's let Jack play human shield." Rose said, much less cheerfully. In fact, she sounded downright unhappy about the whole thing. Then again, technically it had been her fault, and she wasn't entirely sure if it was a gift or a curse that she had given him.

Just then, the really-deserved-to-be-trademarked sound of metal footsteps sounded behind them. The half-human Doctor, who had been at the back of the group, spun around first, and by the time the others turned he had already backed up two steps towards the rest of the group. Blocking their only exit were two Cybermen.

"May I?" Donna asked, glancing at the other Time Lord.

"If you must. It's hardly fair, though." he replied.

"You didn't seem to mind with the Daleks." she muttered.

"Well they were a real threat to us." he retorted.

Donna raised her hand. Rose and both Doctors did note the ironic comparison to the way the Cybermen themselves would attempt to 'delete' a victim. Except she didn't reach out to touch them. Instead, she concentrated.

"What's she trying to do?" Jack asked, warily.

"It won't work on the metal they're made of." the Doctor noted.

Donna rolled her eyes, "Every time. Just once I wanna fight something that dangerous that I _can_ rust." and she raised her hand to point at the door frame above the Cybermen, which rotted in seconds and the concrete above it crumbled, falling on top of the Cybermen and burying them.

"Crude, but still." the Doctor said, laughing.

"Very impressive." a voice said behind them, from the back of the room.

They all spun around again, to see a man, flanked by another two Cybermen. He was tall, almost as tall as his inhuman pets, and his sneering face showed pure malice with a hint of amusement.

"You know who he looks a bit like?" Donna asked, staring at this stranger. "Lucius Malfoy. You know, if he wasn't blond."

"No." the Doctor said, his tone low and emphatic. Then after a second he conceded, "Well, maybe. Yeah, he kind of does."

Jack looked like he had to fight not to laugh, "I see the resemblance."

"Ahem." the stranger seemed more than a little annoyed that they hadn't reacted with awe and fear as he'd hoped. "When you're all done prattling about my current- and extremely temporary- appearance, maybe we could get down to business?"

"What sort of business were you thinking of?" Jack asked, grinning.

The half-human Doctor rolled his eyes, while Rose and both Time Lords actually laughed. Everyone got what Jack was insinuating. Except the stranger, or maybe he did understand but chose to ignore it completely.

"You're all as bad as my accomplice. Can't focus on anything serious for more than five seconds!" he snarled.

"All right, let's play your game for a while." Donna said cheerfully, "Who are you?"

"I am the one who will destroy you all." he turned to face the Doctor, "Except you. You get to live, well, relatively."

"Like we haven't heard that threat a million times." the half-human said, now sounding bemused, "It gets old after the first hundred so-called evil geniuses fail to follow through on it."

"Why do you want to let me live?" the Doctor asked, warily.

"Yeah, there's only, like, three reasons to do that, and they're all really dumb." Donna said, grinning. Knowing perfectly well the Master had actually used two of those reasons when he took over Earth, the irony was not lost on her. Those two reasons had been to see the Doctor suffer, and because somewhere in a part of his mind he had refused to admit to, the Master had still cared about the Doctor. The third reason that had occurred to her was to possess him, and this seemed the most likely for this being they were facing, especially since he _had_ said his current form was temporary.

Both Doctors gave her a look that showed they understood her train of thought, too.

"Simple." the stranger said, "I am you, Doctor. I couldn't very well kill you."

"Ok, four." Donna muttered, sounding almost sulky at being proved wrong.

"Oh no. You're not- you can't be-" the Doctor started, but he seemed unable to find the words.

Donna's eyes widened, while the half-human seemed to be trying and failing to recall exactly why his Time Lord counterpart was so horrified. Jack and Rose exchanged a confused look, but then Jack grinned and whispered something to Rose that caused her to grin as well, and nod in agreement with whatever Jack had said.

"How did you get here?" Donna asked cautiously.

"It's all her fault." the stranger said, nodding to Rose. Rose put her hand to her chest in an affronted 'who, me?' gesture. "Yes, you. You drove us out of the Matrix."

Rose tilted her head to one side, eyes seeming to glaze a little as she tried to remember, "Oh!" she said after a second, "Now I get it. Well, sort of." She had very little recollection of her actions as the Bad Wolf, but the word 'Matrix' rang a bell, and the Doctor and Donna had explained her part in saving Gallifrey. She must have inhabited the AI of Gallfrey's main computer- also known as the Matrix- for a moment to achieve her goal.

"Impossible." the Doctor muttered, still in shock.

"Are we actually thinking the same thing here?" the half-human asked, glancing from Rose to the Doctor and back again. "Is he-?"

"I think so." Donna whispered, mildly horrified.

"The Valeyard." the Doctor said, and he received a smug nod from the subject of their debate when he finally named it.

The Valeyard had at one point in the Doctor's past presented itself with the claim that it was the Doctor's final incarnation. It was, in fact, a product of the Matrix, based on the Doctor's memories, but with no love, no trace of compassion. In layman's terms, it was an evil version of the Doctor.

"That makes four of us, now." Donna joked. Referencing the number of people standing in this room right now who in some way were connected to the Doctor's mind, including the Doctor himself of course.

"And you are?" the Valeyard demanded, glaring at Donna.

"Don't you recognise me?" she asked, in a tone that implied she was trying not to laugh.

She looked him in the eyes, and the Valeyard must have seen that manic glint there, because he went very pale and took a step back, staring at her for several minutes, "That is not possible."

"Neither's Jack, you see him complaining?" Donna retorted.

"Actually, for the first thirty years, or so-" Jack muttered, under his breath, but Donna waved dismissively to stop him.

"Can we stay on the subject of your imminent demise for one minute, please?" the Valeyard demanded. In spite of the word 'please', it really was made to sound like an order.

"Nope." Donna said, cheerfully.

"I think we're looking at your demise, actually." Rose said brightly.

While everyone else had been holding the Valeyard's attention, she had moved around the room, and now she had her hand on a switch on the wall. "No!" the Valeyard yelled, but she threw the switch, and both his Cyber-minions fell to the ground sparking electricity as they overloaded.

"Is it just me, or was that too easy?" Donna asked, glancing at Jack. He shrugged. Even Donna herself did not notice her fingers tapping silently against each other in that four-beat pattern, but she did hear the echo in the back of her mind. "There's more to it than just a few bits of scrap metal." she said coldly.

"You mentioned an accomplice." the half-human spoke up.

"I did, didn't I?"

"Start talking." Donna said, the tapping getting faster, to a point of almost-violence, as her fingernails stabbed at her fingers. Still she didn't notice it, though Jack- the only one who was standing behind her- did.

"Make me." the Valeyard said, his tone too smug, as if he thought he was still in control of the situation.

"He literally asked for it." Donna noted, in her 'Master' accent, taking a step towards the Valeyard.

"Don't kill him." the Doctor warned.

"I wasn't planning on it." she said blithely, "But you'd be surprised what you can live through."

"I wouldn't." Jack muttered, but she ignored him and stepped closer to the Valeyard, so she was right in front of him now.

She very suddenly grabbed his wrist, and he yelled in pain. "Talk." she ordered. He continued to scream. "Look, this is gonna hurt a lot more, if you don't." she said sweetly.

"She's enjoying that too much." the half-human muttered.

"Tell me about it." the Doctor said, with a sigh.

"Is she using-" the half-human asked.

"Psyonic temporal deference. Yes." It was the technical term for when a Time Lord used the power of their mind alone to bend time. It wouldn't be the first time anyone had suggested a Time Lord was to a Gallifreyan what a wizard was to a human. They even had similar energy-signatures. The only significant difference was that Time Lords were from a far older and more technologically advanced race.

"That's illegal." the half-human noted.

"Only if you get caught." the Doctor said, smiling faintly, "She used it all the time when we were fighting the Daleks."

"That's war, this is torture." the half-human noted.

"You want to try and stop her?" the Doctor asked, perfectly seriously.

"No, I like my vital organs were they are, thanks."

Jack, who had been listening, laughed almost nervously, "Want me to try and stop her?"

"Stop, please!" the Valeyard finally yelled, "I'll tell you what you want to know, just stop it!"

Donna complied. By this point, the Valeyard's right hand had been turned to dust, and there was a hand-print shaped mark on his forearm that was blackened. "Good boy." she taunted, in her Master tone, "Didn't really want to make you look like Darth Vader, but if you'd held out long enough I would have."

He glared at her, clutching his wounded arm defensively, and directed a swear-word at her. It roughly translated into English as 'whore of a thousand generations', though the two and a half Time Lords in the room were aware that no translation had actually been made by the TARDIS, and the humans in the room wouldn't know what it meant.

"No, that's Jack." she said innocently.

"Huh?" Jack asked.

"Nevermind." Donna said, dismissively, "You were about to talk?" she asked the Valeyard too innocently, as if he had volunteered the information of his own free will, and she would never even consider torturing someone like that.

"We came here through the Void." he said, in a low growl that showed the full measure of his resentment for the torture, "My accomplice is just like me, a product of the Matrix. He's already out there with three Cybermen, I don't know where he went."

"Impatient, is he?" Donna asked.

"Look who's talking." the Valeyard snarled at her, "You could have extracted that information in any number of less physically scarring ways."

"Where's the fun in that?" she asked. This entire time, she had yet to drop her 'Master' voice at all. And her fingers were still tapping against each other in that infernal beat.

"What do you intend to do to me now?" he snarled.

"Oh, that's not my decision. I'll leave you to bleeding hearts over here." and she wandered over to stand next to Jack, giving the Doctor a pointed look as if to say 'he's all yours now'.

The Doctor glared at her, and asked in a hissed whisper, "What's gotten into you?"

"I feel the very strong desire to find his accomplice." she answered, reverting to her normal voice, "Irrational."

"It's probably the drums." Jack noted, nodding to her hand, which was still tapping.

She stopped it immediately, staring at her hand, "I... didn't even notice that." she whispered, seeming more surprised than any other emotion. One might have expected horror or self-loathing, but no; just surprise.

"Why so single-minded all of a sudden?" the half-human asked, "As I recall, neither you nor the Master were ever so focused. And even he had his limits when it came to torture. He generally didn't get his hands dirty."

Donna frowned, "There's something about him. And the accomplice he mentioned. I'm not sure how to put it into words."

"Um, guys?" Rose said, drawing their attention. She pointed to where the Valeyard had been trying to sneak past them to escape.

The Doctor rather coldly pointed his sonic screwdriver at the Valeyard, and whatever setting he'd put it to stunned him. "We'll come back to deal with him later."

x x x

**Author's Note:** Please review, it makes me update faster.


	5. Voodoo Child

**Disclaimer:** I don't own it, nobody said I own it, you can't prove I own it!

**Author's Note:** Here we learn the origin of the Drums. Or at least, my spin on it. I already realise that I got the ring's description wrong in part of this series, so I don't feel so bad about this as I would otherwise, knowing he _did_ say somewhere he'd heard them all his life. Besides, when I actually wrote this chapter I didn't realise that he'd said that.

x x x

**Chapter 4: Voodoo Child**

x x x

After restraining the unconscious Valeyard, they had headed out into Cardiff to find his accomplice, and the three Cybermen he'd 'borrowed'. It wasn't difficult. Tact was not this being's strong suit. There was as trail of destruction leading out from the Torchwood building, and it was easy enough to follow. It seemed almost surprising that there were no corpses in the rubble. Most likely because the people here were well aware of what the Cybermen could do, and were smart enough to run at the sight of them.

It wasn't long before they caught up with him. Rose had brought her favourite gun with her. The one she'd brought to the Dalek invasion. The Cybermen were blasted apart before their controller could even turn around to face his attackers.

But before anyone else could react- their first instinct was to laugh at his truly un-evil appearance, but they didn't get a chance- Donna spoke.

"Hello, blondie." she said coldly. The Drums in her mind were louder, when she so much as looked at him. Pounding through her blood. Both begging and ordering her to hurt him. Just him. There had been times when they had been completely undirected. Donna had chosen to direct them at Daleks, that had made them happy for a while. But now, they wanted this one being's blood. Nothing more, nothing less.

"Donna, don't provoke him!" the Doctor snapped.

"Oh, but I'm gonna do just that." she said, grinning a bit maniacally. It was a grin that the Doctor and Jack had seen before, worn by the Master when he had called for the Toclafane to swarm down onto Earth.

"Who is this guy, anyway?" Jack asked.

"Dead to be." Donna said coldly, her false accent strong, as if Donna herself had completely taken a backseat to the Master's mind.

"When you're done squabbling..." the blond said coldly, "See the roots, I'm trying to get rid of the crap the human I possessed put into his hair, really trying. Don't. Call. Me. Blondie!"

Donna tilted her head to one side, still grinning, "Blondie blondie blondie. Mr Blond. Captain Peroxide. Lord of the Bleach. Blondie, _blondie. **Blondie**_."

By the end of this tirade, Jack had a thoughtful look on his face, and Rose caught it, "What?"

"Liked the peroxide one." he muttered.

"You are not thinking of dying your hair?" Rose asked, stunned.

"No, thinking of using the insult." Jack said, and he did have one target in particular in mind.

"That's mature." Rose muttered.

"No offence, Rose, yours looks good, and he's asking for it." Donna said in her own accent. Then reverting to her Master accent, "Time to die now, blondie."

And she lunged at him. No weapons, but the first thing she did was a typical cat-fight tactic of grabbing her victim's hair and pulling _hard_.

Followed by a knee to the groin. Serves him right for having long enough hair to pull _and_ that weakness, most opponents just have one or the other.

He retaliated, pulling a switchblade and aiming for her abdomen.

She spun to the side in a fluid motion that dodged the blade easily, still gripping the hair. She kicked the blade out of his hand pulling him down to the ground when she lost her footing.

They rolled over a couple of times, punching and clawing at each other.

Soon, Donna was on top, with a knee on the blonde's stomach, grappling to pin his hands down. Then he kicked at her back, stunning her and knocking her down on top of him. But Donna Noble was no delicate waif, and the body he was possessing was very weak for a man. He was now mostly pinned, with only one arm free.

The only thing he seemed able to do in this instant was to reach that hand up to her throat. But he didn't try to throttle her, as everyone seemed to expect.

Instead, he pressed his index and middle fingers into the back of her neck, right where it met her skull. Donna gasped, and both combatants went completely still.

"What just happened?" Jack asked, blankly.

"Telepathic link. They're fighting in her mind, now." the Doctor said, frowning rather deeply.

x x x

_He found himself in the middle of a barren red plain. The ground was dust, the sky was black and starless, and winds swirling around as if he was in the eye of a great storm. _

_"Bad move, parasite." that voice was male, but he'd attacked a female, he knew he had. _

_"Yeah, I'm female, so what?" that was the voice of the woman he'd fought. Why were there two? How could two share one mind? _

_The winds were sweeping closer to him, and a sound was carried on it. Slowly at first. _

_**Ba da da dum.** _

_"You're standing on the tracks." the female voice warned. She was laughing at him. _

_But he looked down, and there was nothing but dust beneath his feet. He looked around, and there was nothing but the wind and the blackness. _

_**Ba da da dum. Ba da da dum.** _

_"What are you?!" he yelled, trying to be heard over the wind. _

_"You should know." the male voice said coldly, so softly it shouldn't really have carried in this wind, but he heard it nonetheless. "You stole my memories. You tried to become me." _

_**Ba da da dum. Ba da da dum.** _

_The beat was getting louder, faster. All around him, now. The wind was whipping up the dust at his feet and throwing it at him, into his eyes and mouth, sharp grains of sand slashing at his skin. _

_**Ba da da dum. Ba da da dum.** _

_"Time to die." the male voice said, almost gleefully, cackling until even that was drowned out by the deafening beat. _

_**Ba da da dum. Ba da da dum. Ba da da dum. Ba da da dum.**_

x x x

The Doctor ran over to Donna, carefully checking her pulse without breaking the telepathic link. "She's still alive." he said quietly, "But neither of them are breathing."

"That's normal, though." the half-human noted, "I mean... intense telepathy isn't advised for long periods because you usually do forget to breathe. Right?"

"Can't you just pull his hand away?" Rose asked.

"Not for this." the Doctor said, scowling, "There are five telepathy pressure points. Temples, sides of the face and this one. This one leads right into the emotional centres of the brain, and physically breaking a link through it is usually fatal to both parties. The other four aren't anywhere near so dangerous."

Jack raised an eyebrow, "Right into the emotional centres of the brain, huh?"

"Stop thinking what you're thinking, Jack." the half-human said, shaking his head, "Please."

Just then, Donna gasped, and pulled back from the connection herself, staggering inelegantly to her feet. "I think I enjoyed that."

Jack opened his mouth and was smacked by Rose for even thinking of saying whatever he'd been about to.

"What happened?" the Doctor asked, worried.

"I think I've figured out what he is. And I don't think he'll be waking up anytime soon." she answered, tossing her hair over her shoulder and trying to straighten up a bit, brushing imaginary- and some not-so-imaginary- dust off her clothes. "I feel a bit weird, though."

"How?" the Doctor asked.

"Well I don't hear the drums anymore. I had actually gotten used to them." she said distantly. Everyone was staring at her now, Rose with confusion, Jack and both Doctors with surprise. After a few seconds, she whispered, "It's so quiet now."

x x x

_Flashback, Gallifrey. _

_"You will serve us, or you will be returned to oblivion." _

_"So diplomatic." the Master growled. This form greatly resembled that of his second life; dark hair, pale skin, brooding, with cold eyes and the sort of face that looked like it had never heard of a smile. Well, since it was a brand new body and he'd spent its entire existence of five minutes or so glaring, this face really never had heard of a smile, yet. _

_"We need fighters for this war." _

_"Yes, because you're all a bunch of xenophobic bibliophiles that never had an excuse to so much as exercise before you were besieged!" the Master snapped. "I'll bet you're recalling _all_ the renegades." _

_"The Doctor was the only one to respond to our call." _

_"So Ushas is still out there? To hell with that, get her up here and she'll give you a plague to wipe those things from existence in under thirty minutes. Or your pizza's free." he added the old Earth joke in the hopes of throwing them off their interrogation-mode. Not that it seemed to work. _

_"The Rani is dead." finally, one of the other two, who had remained silent thus far, spoke. The Master didn't care to differentiate between them. They shared a collective metaphorical stick up their arses, and he didn't have the inclination to even bother to remember their titles, let alone care which one said what to him. _

_Ushas was the Rani's second name (the Rani being her title, or third name), and since he'd known her at school, that was why he'd automatically used it. One time, she'd threatened to turn him into a toad because he'd tried flirting with her, when they'd been in their twenties. She'd even created a mutogen to that end and slipped it into his drink. Literally ten minutes after the initial threat. Luckily he'd not been stupid enough to actually drink it. _

_"Too bad, I kind of liked her." the Master said, shrugging it off rather easily. _

_"The Daleks will destroy us all, if you do not cooperate." the one who had done most of the talking said coldly. _

_"And since when did I care about the rest of you?" _

_"Since your homeworld was at risk, I should hope!" the third one finally spoke. He'd begun to think she was a mute. _

_The Master glared, then folded his arms defensively, "I will not be blackmailed." _

_"Then will you be bribed?" the first one asked. _

_He tilted his head to one side, "Depends what you're offering." _

_"You have been brought back with a single life. We could give you a new cycle of regenerations in exchange for your help." _

_He tried not to show the enthusiasm he felt for that thought, but he was pretty sure his eyes had lit up as he heard it. "That is acceptable." he said, as calmly as he could, given his excitement at their offer, "For that, I think I will help you with your silly little war." _

_"This way." the female beckoned him towards a machine. _

_As he approached it, he started to hear a strange sound in the back of his mind. When he stepped into the machine the echo grew louder, a drumming. Like nothing he had ever heard before. It was somehow infuriating, but there was no reason for it. The others showed no signs of hearing any such sound. _

_The machine activated, and he felt energy flow through him. _

_"Half now, half later. Usual payment method when you don't trust someone." the second of the three said, a bit too smugly. _

_Six lives. Alright, then. Not too bad. But this sound! It was driving him crazy. _

_"Do you hear that?" he asked them. _

_"Hear what?" the female replied. _

_That's a 'no' then. He shook his head, dismissing his own question. _

_He stepped out of the machine, and glanced back at it suspiciously. When he did so, he could swear something was watching him, too. He recognised the machine from legend only. It was the Matrix, the vast artificial intelligence that ran all the computer systems on the planet. The only machine capable of dealing in life and death, in a way that even the pure energy of the Vortex could not. _

_Something was watching him, and these drums begged him to lash out at whatever it may be. _

_But he did not understand their command clearly enough. Instead he chose to direct this new fury at something more tangible, "Let's go kill some Daleks." he said, cracking a smile for the first time with this new body. It was a sinister and evil smile which actually succeeded in striking fear into the three Time Lords that had chosen to bring him back._

x x x

Donna sat, staring rather dully at the blond, who lay on the ground, writhing as if in agony. He wasn't dead, and she somehow found that this was worse than if he had just died. He may have been metaphysically wrong in ways Captain Jack couldn't even aspire to, and evil on top of it, but she still managed to cringe as she saw him in so much pain.

"What is he?" Rose asked, sitting down next to Donna, trying to provide some degree of comfort.

"A parasite." she said, in her affected accent which she used when she was channeling the Master. "I don't fully understand it. But as I see it, it came out of the Matrix. That's where I first heard the drums."

"Drums?" Rose asked.

"Yeah, the Master did mention them. Once or twice. A minute." the Doctor noted.

"Oi, shut it you!" Donna said, playfully, her own accent returning, and staying there as she continued to speak, "Yeah, they drove him madder than he already was." she explained to Rose, shooting the Doctor a 'keep quiet now, or else' glare. "He first heard them when the Time Lords resurrected him to fight in the Time War. It came from the Matrix." her accent switched quite suddenly, "I'm beginning to think it was like a part of my mind reacting to the sense of an intruder. Like an antibody telling the rest of your body there's a disease that needs killing. But I didn't fully understand it until I saw him, face to face." Here she glanced at the still writhing body on the ground.

"But he was human. He said he'd possessed a human." Rose said quietly.

"Most possessions drive out the host after a time." the half-human Doctor said quietly, "You remember Cassandra? She'd have destroyed you given twenty-four hours. For me, it'd probably have taken her a year, but that's not the point."

"So there's no hope for the human he used to be?" Rose asked quietly.

"None." all three Time Lords said, at the same moment.

Jack scowled, not taking his eyes off the being in question, but he didn't comment. He was of the opinion that if that was true they should put it out of its misery right now, but damned if he'd be the one to do it, and he was pretty sure they others would be just as disinclined to kill it.

Eventually, representatives of Torchwood showed up, and much to Rose's disgusted protests, they took the victim away for study.

"Where Torchwood says study, read dissection." Jack said coldly. When he'd first been brought in by Torchwood all those years ago, they'd _tried_ an alien-autopsy on him, but that hadn't really worked well because he woke up half-way through, besides he was human as far as they could tell. He just didn't stay dead.

x x x

**Author's Note:** Please review, it makes me update faster.


	6. Life Goes On

**Disclaimer:** I don't own it, nobody said I own it, you can't prove I own it! That said, anyone working for the BBC who reads this, please interpret it as a job application for writing on Doctor Who.

**Author's Note:** One random Rocky Horror reference, just for fun. And my usual pathetic attempt at an ending. And like I said in my last author note, I know there's mistakes here that work directly against things said in the series, I did _not _remember these when I wrote this, I only figured it out after I'd already committed to the plot-bunny. Honestly, I'm already a bit sick of this particular story (not the whole thing, I still like Arithmancy), so it's good that it's over, imo.

Now, there is one more story in this series, but I won't be posting it for a while, cause I'm working on something _way_ bigger(17 long-ish chapters, and still counting!). On the subject of that 'something way bigger' (it doesn't have a name yet), if anyone has any suggestions for situations not shown in the fourth series, which the Doctor and Donna could get mixed up in, send me a message, or mention it in a review, I'm a bit stuck (doesn't do to keep to existing plot _too_ much, does it?), and I promise to give full credit to whoever suggests any ideas I use.

x x x

**Epilogue: Life Goes On**

x x x

When they returned to the Torchwood building, they found that the Valeyard had disappeared. This wasn't exactly unexpected, but it certainly was annoying. They would have to find a way to track him and stop him. Rose offered to set Torchwood on the task, and promised to call the Doctor if they found him.

x x x

"Come visit any time." the half-human said brightly, as Jack, the Doctor and Donna were preparing to leave. They all stood outside the TARDIS. Even Pete and Jackie were there, Jackie was holding her grand-daughter, who was being a bit hyper right now.

Rose was leaning against her husband, smiling at their three friends. She still loved the Doctor, and missed their adventures together, but she had an actual life here now, and she was happy with that. "Yes, it's always fun trying to save the planet." she joked. Even though it was fun to win the fight, she didn't really like being in mortal peril as much as she used to.

Donna grinned, "Well now that we _can_ come to visit. We're sure to find the time, but you know this one." she jerked her thumb at the Doctor, "Trouble likes him too much to stay away."

"Have I been renamed Trouble, now?" Jack joked, earning an elbow to the ribs from Donna.

Rose laughed, but Jackie spoke up, "You gonna go, or are we all gonna catch cold?" she asked, her tone was friendly and half-joking, as if she wasn't really trying to get rid of them, but she actually didn't want the small child to stay outside too long either.

"Right, let's go." the Doctor said, opening the TARDIS door, to let them in.

"Bye bye!" he glanced over his shoulder, to see the small child waving at them. He smiled weakly, and waved back before disappearing into the TARDIS. It was obvious to everyone present that he was still uncomfortable with the whole idea of his clone being a parent, but he did try to hide that.

x x x

"So where to next?" Jack asked, as the Doctor started flipping switches and turning dials on the TARDIS controls.

"No idea. One of you two choose." he replied brightly.

Donna glanced at Jack, "How about the Galaxy of Transylvania?" she suggested brightly.

"Definitely not." the Doctor said bluntly, but Jack was already laughing. The Doctor then added under his breath, "Humans." in that derogatory tone one uses for lesser beings when they're showing themselves to be as such.

"Hey, I'm not human anymore!" Donna retorted.

"Yes, but you still think too much like one." the Doctor countered.

"Just because I know the definition of the word libido." she muttered.

The Doctor rolled his eyes, and shook his head, "You're almost as bad as he is."

"That's not possible." Jack said cheerfully, still trying to stop laughing.

"I liked him before I turned Time Lord." Donna muttered.

"Get a room already, then." the Doctor retorted.

Donna grinned, "Good idea." and the two disappeared further into the TARDIS.

The Doctor stared after them, for a moment, before rolling his eyes and turning his attention back to the TARDIS. Since neither of them had given him a reasonable suggestion, he decided where they were going next, and set a course back to their own universe.

x x x

The End.


End file.
